RIP Dr. Z

[UPChip]

Per Peter King's Twitter:

 

[goalmouth]

The documentary on him was excellent. He has been missed.

 

[Alma]

Enjoyed the hell out of his work.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Bought and read Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football when I was in my 2os. Still have it. Still holds up.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

The documentary on him was excellent. He has been missed.

He has indeed, but given his health issues after the stroke (more than one?) I’m glad he’s not trapped in a useless body anymore.

 

[cyclingwriter2]

He was probably one of the biggest reasons I got into writing. I remember reading his 1986 NFL Preview in SI and thinking he was a damn idiot. Everyone knew the bears would repeat and they would play the dolphins in the super bowl. His choices? Giants vs. the Broncos. Needless to say come January, i thought he must have been a genius. Read every article afterward and any book of his I could find. My favorite he did was “the last season of weeb ewbank.”

Also, back when he was with the Post, he and **** schaap co-wrote a great piece on the New York Mets in 1969. It was a breakdown of a day when the Mets beat the cubs in a big game. I assume schaap wrote the game stuff, while Zimmerman did the odd stuff that made it so interesting such as the retelling of a guy in queens killing his wife because she kept turning off the game to watch a soap opera. I spent a couple years trying to convince my editor to let us do the same.

 

[Azrael]

A giant to his rest.

 

[Webster]

One of the first great internet sports columns. He was super smart, a curmudgeon for the ages and he loved good wine.

 

[garrow]

First sportswriter I ever read regularly. RIP.

 

[LanceyHoward]

When I was in high school doing write-ups for my high school's football games for the local paper he was my hero. He provided a level of insight in a Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football that I had never been exposed to by any other writer.

 

[HappyCurmudgeon]

We lost him a while ago but I guess today made it official. RIP

 

[HappyCurmudgeon]

Didn't his wife have like a blog a few years back where she posted some of his old columns or some columns that didn't make print.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

I am glad he has been relieved of his burden, but a hell of a lot of knowledge is gone in a wisp. That's not good for football or the enterprise.
We are in an era where we simply cannot afford the loss of expertise.

 

[Huggy]

Loved his columns when I watched and read all the NFL I could get. He watched and wrote about football like nobody else. I loved his year-end wrapup of NFL announce teams.

RIP Dr Z

 

[Monday Morning Sportswriter]

He lived around the corner from me. Straight up good guy.

 

[MileHigh]

A true legend who has been missed since his retirement. He knew the league inside and out. RIP to a giant in his field.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Bought and read Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football when I was in my 2os. Still have it. Still holds up.

I always loved his story of the Jets going to play in San Diego, and, on a night off, Weeb Ewbank and some assistants go to Tijuana.

They get confronted by a guy asking them if they want to buy filthy movies. Ewbank replies, "Christ no. I've been watching movies all day."

RIP to a sportswriting legend.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

It's worth noting that two of the giants of the field who've recently passed, Z and Dave Anderson, both covered the Jets of the '60s.

 

[Steak Snabler]

Ken Stabler's daughter weighs in:



Anybody else know the rest of the story?

 

[mateen]

It has to do with the episode in which Stabler allegedly had henchmen plant drugs in the car of a reporter who had gone down south to profile him: https://deadspin.com/when-ken-stabler-was-a-country-music-lyric-come-to-life-1717060008/1717487070. IIRC Zimmerman wrote that he became adamantly opposed to Stabler's HOF candidacy after that based on character grounds, among others.